'I trusted myself'
Voyagers: Simon Pickard and Helen Opie
Boat: Hanse 385, Interlude
Cruising: Germany to Australia via Gibraltar, Morocco, Canary Islands etc
By way of contrast, some ocean voyagers prefer a new yacht to an oldie. Simon Pickard (39) and Helen Opie (37), for example, decided to take a sabbatical from their careers in the film and banking worlds in Sydney, buy a brand-new Hanse 385 then sail it from Germany to Australia. Simon told me: ‘We sold the boat on return to Oz within a day. Pretty much covered the cost of the trip!’
With the help and advice of UK Hanse dealers Inspiration Marine, Simon fitted the boat with essential items such as solar panels, Iridium GO and safety gear needed for long passages, adding: ‘I did much research and filled almost half the boat with spares and other items that everyone says are must-haves. But in the end I trusted myself and we left with hardly anything – a few engine spares, small toolkit, etc. The reality is you don’t need most of this stuff. And if something does break, nine times out of 10 it’ll be a standard part which all production boats use that’s easy to find and replace as you go. We saw many boats packed full of junk, just in case, going two knots slower due to the weight on board.’ It’s an unusual approach. Many may not copy it – but Interlude made it happily to Australia in one piece.
He went on to say that ‘once we’d done our loop of the Med we needed to replace our solar panels in Gibraltar. We’d used cheap panels from China that lasted all of four months. You really do get what you pay for with electrical tech. Also in Gibraltar we added our watermaker – a small 12V unit that worked extremely well. The solar panels powered it and, although slow, we left it on for hours during the day to keep the tanks topped up. I’d say a watermaker is a must-have item once you get out there.’
Then – like many novice ocean voyagers – he tagged along with the ARC, saying this was a great experience. The only issue was ‘some of the parts we needed to fix after our ARC crossing weren’t stock items anywhere we tried, so we needed to order things in. Inspiration was great and paid for everything, including shipping.’
I then asked if he would do anything differently if starting again. Simon replied; ‘I’d add a big overlapping sail, like a code zero, and we had no way to “wing and wing”, which caught us out a few times. I’d also try to add more solar power and a method to rotate the panels.’
Extremely comfortable
When I asked how comfortable the boat was on long Pacific crossings, Simon said: ‘Extremely. The 385 was a great boat and we never had an issue with her in that regard. Of course if the weather was nasty, life on board wasn’t much fun. But you’d say the same of any boat.’
He then added that their worst experience on the whole trip was when ‘we got caught in a horrible weather system sailing from Morocco to the Canary Islands. At its worst we had solid 4-5m waves and 35-plus knots on the beam.
‘The power in the waves was incredible, and at times our autopilot couldn’t handle the conditions. We were lucky to come out of that without any damage to ourselves or the boat, and I don’t really like thinking about it now. I know how close we came to being in serious danger.
‘It was totally our fault for not reading the weather correctly. The only other issue was when our steering cable broke halfway between the Galapagos Islands and French Polynesia. Our autopilot handled 1,000 miles with no problem. I think the cable breakage was just due to wear – I know other boats had the same
issue. I believe Hanse now over-spec the cable size for this reason. The spare took a bit of time as it had to come from Oz and we were in Tahiti. The warranty paid for all costs. The B&G autopilot was attached to the rudder stock. I wouldn’t have it any other way as it’s a great backup.’ Indeed!
Do your homework
I then asked Simon what advice he’d give to would-be voyagers with standard production boats. ‘Don’t think twice about it, do it,’ he said. ‘There’s no difference between a production boat and “blue-water” boats if you do your homework and really pay attention to the weather. Way more older blue-water boats were having issues than the production boats. Also, production boats are mostly made from the same key components – the same water pumps, the same engine parts, etc. All of these are easy to find anywhere around the world, whereas we met people on blue-water boats who were stuck for weeks or months on end waiting for expensive parts to arrive. If we were to do the trip again we’d hardly change a thing. We’d buy a new production boat – with the peace of mind the warranty gives you – add very little to it, and get out there.’
As a parting shot, he agreed with Bill’s advice, saying: ‘Try as soon as possible to find a buddy boat, especially when travelling down the long remote legs. Seeing a light from another boat in the distance at night when you’re 800 miles from land is a very good feeling.’ If you want to read more about Simon and Helen’s adventures, log onto www.sailing-interlude.com.